Schedule

Date commencing:

Activity:

9/09/19:

- Researching western history, three games and a film for genre and theme, as well as character information of the media I chosen. Target audience with primary research and websites, such as Common Sense Media (2003), IMDb (1990), YouTube (2005), and Rotten Tomatoes (1998). And look into game art for art style ideas for game. Continue with level theory from Martyn.

- Begin all pre-production - one sheet, asset list, proposal, research plan, asset concept art, level design and background blueprint, HUD concepts, game logo and sleeve, and beat chart. And when finished, proceed with remaining research.

- 9am Pre-Production Deadline then presentation. Then use feedback from teacher & classmates to improve Pre-production tab.

- Start making logo & level background then start making game sleeve with Photoshop & Illustrator.

- Start doing game outlining and importing art to game on Unity

- Begin fully producing game on Unity (details and mechanics) & start evaluation when done

- Begin evaluation on Wix & fill in any gaps of work

- 5pm Friday 24th October: Final Deadline

16/09/19:

23/09/19:

30/09/19:

7/10/19:

14/10/19:

21/10/19:

24/10/19:

Research Plan

Theme & Genre:

For theme and genre, I will research 3 games and their themes and genres. For this, I have played Brawl Stars (Supercell, 2018), Super Mario Bros (Nintendo, 2006), and Juicy Realm (SpaceCan, 2018). Additionally, for theme and genre towards my audience, I looked furthermore with Brawl Stars (Supercell, 2018), super Mario Bros. (Nintendo, 2006), but also looking into a film, Zootopia (2016). To expand my ideas of theme, I will look into the history of the Old West, which is explained further in the 'Culture' plan.

Target audience:

With target audience, I will use Google Forms (Google, 2008), to create a questionnaire about games my friends played. I will publish my questionnaire onto my Snapchat story, to my closest friends, acquaintances on (Discord Inc., 2015), and my college classmates. I will also research into why the 2 games and a film I chosen is suitable for their target audience by how they designed their characters through audio, personality and visuals. Additionally, I will look into the definition of PEGI 7, since my target audience is masculine in ages 7-11.

Culture:

Since I plan to make a western-fantasy game, I will research into the history of Old Western clothing, and the historical events of the old West to develop a story line for my game. As well as looking into the game of both Red Dead Redemption games (Rockstar, 2010 - 2018). For this, I will use YouTube (2005), Wikipedia (2001) and websites that present Old Western clothing, to look into plots and historical events. (Other websites will be referenced in other research tabs).

Game art:

For my game logo, I will research into 5 game logos so that I can take inspiration and develop my own for my game. Additionally, I will look into 3 games' art styles. The games will be Animal Crossing New Leaf (Nintendo, 2012) and Juicy Realm (SpaceCan, 2018). And another art style, that isn't games, Chibi, a Japanese art style from manga in a simplified and cute version. With these, I will describe their appearance, semiotics, and how they're suitable for their target audience. For this research, I will use Google Images (Google, 2001) to analyse the images with my own knowledge of semiotics and how they're appropriate for their audience with design, colours and shapes. However, if I don't know a representation of a shape, colour or object, I will search on Google(1998) to find their definitions. For the 5 logos, I will look into Mortal Kombat (Avalanche Software, Eurocom, Just Games Interactive, Midway Games, Midway Studios Los Angeles, Other Ocean Interactive, Point of View, Inc., NetherRealm Studios, 1992 - present), the 4 gaming platforms (Nintendo, PlayStation, Xbox, and Origin), Plants VS Zombies (PopCap Games, 2009), Apex Legends (Respawn Entertainment, 2019) and Juicy Realm (SpaceCan, 2018).

Level theory:

We were assigned to research into the game of Sonic Adventures 2: City escape (SEGA, 2001) by how the developers perfectly designed the map and levels of the game so that every mechanics fit into the game, and expand the attraction of players to play the game in a spectrum of traits: explorers, learners, and the just-play players. Because of how the players learn the mechanics, players learn them by either in level 1, or they start by playing through a tutorial. Therefore we chose a game that has either of the methods. I chose Apex Legends (Respawn Entertainment, 2019), as I was confident to analyse its mechanics of its tutorial. How the players learn, what they see, and why they're obliged to play through it. For this, I played Apex Legends, and I used YouTube(2005) for both videos of the Sonic Adventures 2: City Escape (SEGA, 2001) level theory, and the evolution of the Sonic games (SEGA, 1991-present).

One Sheet

- Theme -

Themes will consist of western-fantasy and action. Because western themes mostly contain gun violence so I decided to tweak the western style with fantasy features such as magical woods, creatures with unique features and powers such as fireballs to replace guns.

- Images -

https___blogs-images.forbes.com_davidthi

Cooper Defence

- Level design -

- Genre -

Since the project is making a game of either top-down or platformer, I decided to make a top-down game because this increases the themes of action and western-fantasy by being able to explore the level in all directions. With this increase, this also increases the fun of the game.

- Art style -

Since the project is about moving away from pixels, and using a new game engine (Unity), I had a character design idea: pixels and a small stubby body. A similar style to chibi. But we cannot use pixels so I'll be designing the character as chibi and everything as round and bright colours. This keeps my audience suitable for my game because I will be simplifying my art style from realistic to simplicity of chibi.

- Story -

My top-down game will be about a fantasy-western heroic fireslinger/fire cowboy. On a mission to defend his West by defeating fantastical creatures of snakes, cacti and spiders.

- Audience -

My target audience is masculine ages 7-11. Their likely social grade would be the bottom grade, since they're in education without a professional job yet. The products they're likely to use are masculine themed Lego sets, or other toys. TV cartoons such as Ben Ten, Ninjago, Teen Titans, Adventure Time and other. The location of adverts they're likely to see are through TV channels, channels such as Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, CBBC, YouTube, or adverts in their mobile games.

Story Concept

Equilibrium

Cooper defeats boss/clears area

New equilibrium

Cooper fights enemies off

An attempt to repair the damage

Disruption of the equilibrium

Enemies of the South come to claim West (cutscene)

Recognition of the disruption

Citizens feel threatened & scared (cutscene)

I chose the Tzvetan Todorov script template.

I chose this template for the scripting of my game because my game will only be small and linear in story, and gameplay, as there are no consequences or choices in the game. So Todorov's template fits perfectly for my small game.

By equilibrium, I mean by that the lands live in peace, a balanced lifestyle between the lands of the continent, until the creatures of the South fire up with desire to expand their land by brutal force. By how the story is presented, this is inspired by my research about the Old West, by, at the time, how the American government wanted more land so they started a war against Native Americans to conquer the lands. Except in my story, there's one hero who stops this from happening against the West. So this maintains my chosen theme of western in a fantasy environment. In terms of genre, this distinctively suits top-down, otherwise the presentation of hidden history behind the game would be difficult to recognise it was platformer. So the exploration around the level assists players to slightly grasp the concept.

Level & background design & HUD concepts

I designed my game in this layout because this allows players to be enabled to smoothly run 'n' gun at enemies. Especially at the open area I left for the players, where mass defeats will be occurring.

In HUD contexts, I placed an awkward item placement in an opening at the top of a tall canyon/boulder where players should not enabled to jump and get their reward. So I added a hidden alcove, next to a tree, at the side of the top border. When they enter, the game will take the players to the top of the boulder and to the reward. This is as if Cooper has entered through the alcove and travelled through an underground passageway and then up inside the boulder/canyon.

This level layout is inspired by the game Juicy Realm (SpaceCan, 2018), except I added quite sharp looking boulders... But because I want to keep my game child-friendly, I will tweak them to rounder edges to make sure my audience don't feel intimated by a sharp atmosphere created, simply, by rocks. In addition to my rocks, they will have gradual patches of dark red/orange to present a western atmosphere to the game to maintain the theme of western with fantasy. As well as genre, my level is designed as the way it is, as shown above, and top-down, because it enables players to explore around the area for additional gameplay experience.

For my level background, I used traditional drawing to present a colour palette of my chosen colours for a luscious green colour effect for grass. As shown on the image. I then blended the colours together to present that effect. After that, I made an example of a concept for my ideal background.

What I blended shows my ideal western-fantasy: luscious grass with plants around to show the fantastical and mythical environment.

It may not seem a lot, but since my game is fantasy, and, ideally, I planned to make a natural, open wooden environment, I designed an overall concept of the main grounds. Plus, the game is top-down, meaning there would be no sky but the floor.

As I forgot to include the major importance of the HUD concepts, I brainstormed ideas of a HUD, after I looked at the Sonic Unleashed (Sonic Team, 2008) and New Super Mario Bros. (Nintendo, 2006) HUD for both health and coins. The health HUD was inspired by the Sonic Unleashed (night mode), because by the design, it's as if it reflects Cooper's ability of fire. But ideally I wanted a simple design to suit for my audience, yet suit Cooper's background of fantasy and western. With genre, it'd be both suitable for top-down or platformer. The top arrow shows my confirmed and ideal HUD concept of Cooper's health bar, as the others were too curvy, complex and seemed feminine. Whereas as the pointed one, in green, presents a simplistic and easy design to avoid players from getting distracted by the other designs, otherwise they'd get easily killed for trying to find their overall health bar.

For theme, as explained, I wanted to suit Cooper's aspect of western and fantasy, so I kept a rocky-like outline for the health bar - but yet to keep simplicity.

With the coins design, the coins collection idea originated from the Mario game (the one with the x in between the coin and 8). I decided to remain with the coins with the rough edges and to have the coin count with the line in between - as pointed at the bottom. I decided to have this design because firstly, I like it, and secondly, it gives players the representation of how many coins they collected.

Asset Concept Art

For enemies, I included colour semiotics for them to represent their aspect of evil. They're designed the way they are to suit my audience and as they're modified real life western creatures, they're redesigned to feature the theme of fantasy, apart from the spider, since its many legs are unique enough. But I gave it simple stripes on the legs and an unhappy yet cute looking mouth, and pincers as the moustache.

Brown hat:

- Security

- Grounding

Brown hair:

- Warmth

- Stability

Orange scarf:

- Determination

- Success

Blue flame:

- Same shape as emblem

- Faith

- Loyalty

Blue eyes:

- Same as his flames

Brown jacket:

- Reliability

- Home

Gold cut:

- Magic

- Courage

Dark blue jeans:

- Power

- Integrity

Dark grey boots:

- Stability

- Formal

Semiotics

This strip of art was inspired from the Splatoon sketches from the V&A exhibition (Videogames: Design/Play/Disrupt (2019). This helps me understand Cooper's poses, movement, even his personality.

As explained on my game art tab, I researched into the chibi art style, as it would be my ideal design for my character Cooper. I decided to go with this design because it’s round, making my game suitable for my audience, as the design isn’t realistic and detailed. However, as the chibi style is quite feminine, I tweaked Cooper into a more of a masculine style with the colours I chose, as presented in the image, and along with my own style of chibi for authenticity. However, this also fits with my genre, top-down. With this style, this helps players get attached with Cooper in this perspective, as Cooper will be shown as full body.

The majority of Cooper’s colours are brown and the boldest colour is his scarf. Combined, this would represent his dedication to defend his homeland, and successfully doing so, hence the orange scarf, flowing in the wind as Cooper's noble duties. His blue flames represent his loyalty towards his homeland, and the connotation of faith is by the citizens of the west, as they have have faith in Cooper. In addition to the shape of his flame, is the same shape as the emblem and coins, implying the game’s iconic symbol to represent the game and Cooper, this goes the same for his eyes, besides representing his inner powers of a fireslinger. But semiotics aside, Cooper’s colour palette is quite solid and bold, suitable for a masculine audience looking for a heroic run ‘n’ gun with fire game. But because it’s heroic, this is why the semiotics I found are also suitable for a masculine audience. Games for boys tend to have heroes with colours that have a heroic and loyal meaning to them, to maintain the heroes’ personality, purpose and duties. Hence why I chose these colours and searched for a specific meaning.

In terms of the way he’s dressed, I took ideas from McCree from Overwatch and some from Old western clothing ideas from websites. This was just to give myself a start on clothing ideas for Cooper, even though he’s designed in a very simple manner. But supposedly, the jacket and shirt came from the Old Western clothing ideas and the scarf from McCree for an iconic asset of Cooper.

In terms of theme and genre, since my research for Cooper's clothing style, this maintains my chosen theme - western. But because of his fire balls, that I decided to replace with guns, this also maintains my other chosen theme of fantasy. I chose fireballs because it's to keep the game's authenticity and uniqueness, as well as the fantasy element, along with the fantastical creatures of snakes, spiders and cacti as enemies. With genre, Cooper is in chibi style to not only suit my audience, but to also allow the perspective show him in full body so that players can attach with Cooper as they play.

Game Logo & Game Sleeve concepts

Since I researched five logos for semiotic and design ideas, I had an idea for my logo: keep it round, fun and funky, and child-friendly. But then also make it iconic, like the image I found of the game engines in their iconic colours. So as I drew character concepts of Cooper in my sketchbook, I spontaneously began drawing a logo for the game. I liked the first design of it, but I needed more design ideas so I drew five more, and the last one satisfied my ideal plan. Keep the letters’ edges touch each other, and make everything in 3D in under perspective, so as if the logo is flying upwards towards the consumer, making the logo seem lively and fun.

My design of the logo also fuses both fantasy and western together. The title 'Cooper', is in a funky design and will be in the colour blue with an orange glow from behind for a masculine colour theme. However, the design is of the title 'Cooper' is a very differing contrast to 'DEFENCE' (will be in an old western font) as both clearly show the game's elements of fantasy and western.

Along with my logo, I also designed the image as funky and spunky by Cooper's reckless yet heroic position. In terms of genre, the image and title summarises the concept of the perspective of the game as players shoot with fireballs, as it's a heroic pose to summarise the gameplay.

With theme, the sleeve clearly shows all of the game's themes, fantasy and western, including action, by how Cooper is posed with fireballs at the ready to go against the worried looking enemy creatures at the bottom.

Proposal

The skills I have developed in year 1 of this course, I have gained extended knowledge of games as I researched into them with primary and secondary research. Such as exhibitions and the web. I have also developed skills of programming with Construct, and artistic production with Piskel and traditional drawing. As well as my dedication to prepare for production with scripts, level designs, character designs and creative planning. With last year’s skills and knowledge, they will be a benefit for me to extend further with achievements and how to research and produce.

I hope to develop further skills in the artistic side, and learn the basics of Unity.

Section 1: Review

Firstly, my target audience is masculine ages 7-11. I planned to make a top-down, western-fantasy shooter game. For this game, I will be scripting a story about a fantasy-western fire-slinger citizen of the west named Cooper. But the West is being invaded by fantastical snakes and spiders, and mutated cacti under their boss’ orders, since they want to claim the West as theirs. Cooper defends the West by fighting them off and defeating the boss. For my game, I will produce one level with mythical features, such as bright trees with specks of glowing fruit, luscious grass and bushes, and unique flowers of fantasy. There will be some canyons to assemble the West, but in a mythical form. I will also be making a script and story flow chart to present to people my game’s story concept. In addition to that, I will conduct sketches of character designs to also assist people to visualise my concept.

For research, I will conduct primary research (V&A exhibition from year 1, a questionnaire with Google Forms, and play games), and secondary research by using the web. With my upcoming research, they will help me visualise and develop ideas for my unique game from looking into players’ past gameplays when they were ages 7-11, as well as playing my own to analyse genre and theme.

The resources I will need are Illustrator for my game logo and Unity to produce my game. Other resources I have myself.

Section 2: Project concept

I will evaluate my project by recording my pre-production and production processes of decisions, actions and problem-solving of why and how I did it on my Wix website. When a section of production is complete, I will blog about it then proceed with the next task.

Then I will evaluate about my progress by reflecting whether my game is influenced by my initial idea or not, as well as analysing my strengths, weakness and threats by explaining analytically and feedback on myself.

Section 3: Evaluation

Andrew Lewis (2019) ‘Evolution of Sonic Games 1991-2019’ YouTube. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkCufD6Dz9Q&t=2s [Accessed 14 September 2019].
Wikipedia (2001) Juicy Realm [Online] Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkCufD6Dz9Q&t=2s [Accessed 16 September 2019].
Google Images (2001) Juicy Realm [Online]. Available from: https://images.google.com/ [Accessed 16 September 2019].
Google Forms (2008) [Online]. Available from: https://www.google.com/forms/about/ [Accessed 9 September 2019].
Bailey Cavender (Unknown date) The American West: History & Settlement [Online]. Available from: https://study.com/ [Accessed 10 September 2019].
David Chapman (Unknown date) Brawl Stars [Online]. Available from: https://www.commonsensemedia.org/ [Accessed 18 September 2019].
Fandom (2004) Sonic Adventure 2 [Online]. Available from: https://www.fandom.com/ [Accessed 12 September 2019].
IMDb (1990) Ginnifer Goodwin: Judy Hopps [Online]. Available from: https://www.imdb.com/ [Accessed 13 September 2019].
Oh My Disney (2012) Life Lessons From Zootopia [Online]. Available from: https://ohmy.disney.com/ [Accessed 13 September 2019].
Rotten Tomatoes (1998) Zootopia Quotes [Online]. Available from: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/ [Accessed 13 September 2019].
PEGI (2007) The PEGI age labels [Online]. Available from: https://pegi.info/ [Accessed 9 September 2019].
Alexia Wulff (2016) A Brief History Of American Western Wear [Online]. Available from: https://theculturetrip.com/ [Accessed 19 September 2019].
Historama (2017? Date Unknown) Wild West [Online]. Available from: http://www.american-historama.org/1881-1913-maturation-era/wild-west.htm [Accessed 11 September 2019].
App Store (2008) Brawl Stars [Online]. Available from: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/brawl-stars/id1229016807 [Accessed 12 September 2019].

Supercell (2018) Brawl Stars, version 14.117 [Mobile app]. Available from: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/brawl-stars/id1229016807 [Downloaded 31 December 2018].
Nintendo (2006) New Super Mario Bros. [Computer game]. Nintendo UK.
Sonic Team (2008) Sonic Unleashed [Computer game]. SEGA.
Respawn Entertainment (2019) Apex Legends [Computer game]. Available from: https://www.ea.com/en-gb/games/apex-legends [Downloaded 28 March 2019].

Zootopia (2016) Directed by Byron Howard, Rich Moore [DVD].

Videogames: Design/Play/Disrupt (2019) [Exhibition]. V&A, London. 8 September 2018 to 24 February 2019.

Proposed Research Sources and Bibliography (Harvard Format)

Asset List

1 main character: Cooper
3 types of enemies: snakes, cacti and spiders
Trees
Boulders
Maybe bushes
Flower patches
Wanted posters? Reference to the Sonic game
Canyons
Luscious grass patches
Cooper's fireballs
Spiders' needle webs as its form of bullets
Cooper powerup? - Faster fireball firing rate, which turns purple?
Snake's spray of venom as form of its bullets.
Citizens and town for cutscene

My asset list presents a concise brief of my game. Also a list of essentials. As the same for my beat chart below, as both these plans will be discussed at the same time.

As my game is top-down, I don't need platforms to my assets, since my game is a run 'n' gun across the woods against creatures, therefore, I'd only need to produce the flooring of the woods. And speaking of creatures, they're snakes (Sneken), spiders (Spooder) and cacti (Muscle Spike) - the living beings of the western desert, which maintains my chosen theme of western. But because the snakes and cacti have arms and legs, apart from the snakes, this also maintains the fantasy aspect of my game. But also apart from spiders, since they act normally, excluding their ability to shoot needled webs at the player.

As the west is majorly a desert, there are large patches of fertile lands. However, my game consists of the west being fully natural with trees, open woods and grass everywhere. Hence the assets I included: flower patches, maybe bushes, trees, luscious grass patches. I also want to add to add specks of glowing light is some areas of the level to heighten the element of fantasy. This degrades the age group, since the flowers would designed simply and colourful to maintain my target audience. Then for boulders in slightly dark red/orange to fuse the aspect of the western element.

Beat Chart

Location:

Kesten Forest

TOD:

Goal:

Characters:

Items:

Objects:

Assets:

Day

Collect as much coins/gems and defeat as much enemies until area is cleared.

Cooper, Spooder, MuscleSpike, Sneken

Coins/gems & maybe powerups

Hidden alcove to awkward item placement

Boulders, trees, plant patches and canyons

Audience profile

Pre-production presentation

The time I presented my pre-production was the 23rd of September. But as we presented our ideas to the class, we were already conducting primary research, since Lizzy (teacher) made us worksheets to fill out about each classmates' game ideas and feedback to help them improve and rethink.

After my presentation, my classmates, anonymously, gave me their sheets and these are the ones I picked that gave good specific or decent details:

All of them, including the sheets not presented, agree that my game is suitable for my audience, rating the suitability with 9/8's out of 10. Since I discussed that my character will be in chibi style with simple designs of clothing and colours, including semiotics to make Cooper iconic for his heroic defense. As well as the level design and environment, there are no detailed textures towards them to make the game seem serious and a hint that the game will be gruesome for my audience, so I also kept the designs simple and mythical. Quotes include: "artsyle is cute and suitable for audience", "good cartoon style", "unrealistic violence", "simplistic run 'n' gun", "lighthearted tone", "magical world" and "chibi - very suitable for 7 to 11 year olds".

In terms of theme, they commented about how my theme is featured into the game. They mostly mentioned about the art style and the magical aspect of the game's theme - fantasy into western with fireballs, instead of guns - so magic. And the land is completely different to the real western lands for uniqueness. However, none gave feedback for how my themes can be featured so I think it's safe to say that I'm presenting my themes well.

And for genre, they mention that my game is, indeed, top-down, but they also gave me ideas on how to aim Cooper's fireballs at his enemies: "Aim with mouse". Initially, I planned to have the aim with the WASD or arrow keys and use the spacebar to shoot, but I think the mouse would increase the fun of the game because it's smooth and easy aiming at Cooper's enemies.

Reference

Color Wheel Pro - See Color Theory in Action (date unknown) Color Meaning [Online]. Available from: http://www.color-wheel-pro.com/color-meaning.html [Accessed 22 September 2019].

(From Google Images) ArtStation (2018) McCree Chibi [Online]. Available from: https://www.google.co.uk/search?safe=strict&tbm=isch&sxsrf=ACYBGNQ2pPgRSkWd207Ik3u6LGnGhkNomw:1569517221002&q=chibi+mccree&spell=1&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiW0rSj--7kAhVeDmMBHba9CVAQBQhXKAA&biw=1536&bih=754&dpr=1.25#imgrc=Hl4nayBWcxlreM: [Accessed 26 September 2019].

Other references are in research tabs and proposal.